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Start with a clean slate. Whether your canvas is going to be a wall or a piece of furniture, begin by getting it ready with a coat or two of fresh paint. A lighter hue allows the colours of the mural to shine through best, but a bold base coat colour can play a dramatic role in your composition. No matter what colour your base coat, use flat paint for the best results. Eggshell or glossy finishes can flake and peel when more paint is applied on top of them.
Practice before you paint. If you're a novice illustrator, sketch you design on paper before applying it to a wall. It will help you get the proportions correct, and it's easier to make adjustments on paper than on a wall. Colouring in your sketch can help work out colour adjustments, too.
Go the mechanical route. If you don't want to draw freehand, use a photocopier to enlarge an image to the size you want (you may need to piece together several pieces of paper), then use graphite transfer paper to copy the image directly onto the wall. Or, project the image onto the wall and trace it. Either method ensures that your composition will remain in scale.
Explore your options for materials. Try drawing with a white charcoal pencil instead of graphite to make cleaning up mistakes easier. Also, it isn't necessary to use expensive artist's paints to get a professional look. Try using crafts paints, which are available from crafts stores.
Layer, layer, layer. Don't try to paint your mural all at once or attempt to mix colours before they're completely dry. Subtle definitions are achieved by deftly layering paint colours. For the best layering effect, use soft colours, avoiding any dark hues that might dominate the image.
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